


you are so much more than the wars you’ve won

by snowfiregirl21



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Copious amounts of affection, Fluff, M/M, blatant objectification of raleigh’s washboard abs to even it out, seriously it’s so fucking gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 20:30:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20841572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowfiregirl21/pseuds/snowfiregirl21
Summary: “Why, Mr. Becket, are you propositioning me?”Raleigh smiles in return, wiggling his eyebrows. “Only if the answer is yes.”





	you are so much more than the wars you’ve won

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a year and a half ago bc my friend and i were losing it in dms about these idiots and well! i miss her and i miss them so, paulina, this is for you baby. rals, you too. <3
> 
> also s/o abby for like kicking my ass in gear about it. love you. sorry. 
> 
> everyone else: i am so sorry. i attempted to touch it up a bit, but it’s 1 am and i can only do so much? allow me a little bit of handwaving to determine how they got to this point in their relationship, thank you
> 
> title from “heirloom” by sleeping at last

There’s a knock on Chuck’s door and he looks through the peephole. Raleigh. They’ve developed a system, the two of them. Raleigh works out until he’s about to drop dead and then he crashes in Chuck’s bed. 

Being near a warm body never hurt anyone. It never helped the two of them, they never fucking did anything besides literally sleep with each other. Not even a single kiss when Chuck broke his finger trying to open a can and dropped it on his hand. He remembered jokingly holding his hand up to Raleigh’s mouth and asking for a kiss. Raleigh  _ looked _ at him and said “injure yourself in a less stupid way sometime and I’ll consider it.”

Chuck will never injure himself in a less than stupid way. 

Chuck turns on Star Trek before he opens the door and frowns, saying he’ll be right back. He returns in minutes and tells Raleigh that once he draws the water, there’s a bath for him. 

He chuckles at the appalled look on his face, reminding him so much of Max when he needed a bath. It must’ve showed when that passed through his head because Raleigh,  _ damn  _ him, asks Chuck if he was okay. Chuck shakes his head. “I’ll be good when you get in the bath.”    
  
Raleigh frowns. “We can still watch Star Trek afterwards?” 

Chuck rolls his eyes. “Of course, your majesty.” 

“I’m taking a shower, not a bath. That’s gross. You’re just sitting in your own filth.” 

Chuck rolls his eyes again. A common occurrence when talking to Raleigh, one he didn’t think would happen. 

“Then take a shower first, dumbass.” 

“Why is it so important to you that I take a bath? A shower is just as helpful for sore muscles.” 

Chuck shrugs, the kind when you try to downplay how much something means to you. “It’s just something my mum would do when I overextended myself or was having a bad day. She’d draw the water and make it bubbly and it was just— it was nice, and I just wanted to do something like that for you, forget it; it’s stupid.” 

He turns around to put the bathroom as it was before and there’s suddenly a heavy weight on his back. 

His hands reach behind to catch what are clearly legs wrapped around his waist and he groans. “What the fuck, Becket.”

Raleigh grins. “Becket? Have I been demoted from  _ Rals _ ?” uttered in a teasing tone, a smirk clear in his voice. 

Chuck rolls his eyes again. “God you’re insufferable.”

Raleigh sighs, resting his chin on Chuck’s shoulder, then muffling his words by putting his mouth on his back. “Yeah, pretty much. But you put up with me.”

Chuck can feel the grin through through his shirt, so warm he feels like he has to take his shirt off, breathe a bit.    
  
Chuck clears his throat and asks Raleigh to get off his back. Raleigh does, and quickly presses himself against his front instead. King of mistakes there, eh, Hansen.  _ Dumbass _ . 

“So uh what do you say we get you into the shower so we can take a proper bath?” 

Raleigh’s face warms into a deep pink, sputtering, “W-we?” and Chuck, honestly hadn’t intended to say that but fuck it, right?    
  
Chuck leaned forward until his forehead was against Raleigh’s. “You can wear a shirt and your boxers, mate. I was going to.”   
  
Raleigh laughs nervously. “Uh, what if I do that, and you just wear your boxers?”   
  
Chuck grins, surprised, his turn for his ears to turn red. “Why, Mr. Becket, are you propositioning me?”    
  
Raleigh smiles in return, wiggling his eyebrows. “Only if the answer is yes.”

Fondly, Chuck thinks, _fucking idiot._   
  
Chuck leans forward, giving Raleigh a chance to come to his senses, pull away, change his mind, and when he doesn’t, Chuck closes the gap and at that warm press of mouths, a sign that they were okay and alive and safe— Raleigh gasps and pulls back, just a smidge, still so close that they’re just breathing each other’s air. Chuck sighs into Raleigh’s mouth, knowing there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.   
  
+++  
  
After Raleigh took his shower (three minutes, very impressive; if Chuck didn’t know any better he’d have said it’s because Raleigh was actually looking forward to the bath), Chuck sits on the edge of the tub and begins to run the water and pour some bubble bath. He dips his fingers in to check the temperature when Raleigh comes in and Chuck almost falls in because _fuck, _what happened to wearing a t-shirt and boxers? Raleigh only held up half of the bargain and thankfully the bottom half because Chuck can only take so much?

Raleigh just carries on, not even aware of Chuck’s inner battle. He sets a towel down on the counter with his back to Chuck. And _fuck, _what a back. He can see Raleigh’s abs in the mirror and, honestly, who the _FUCK _let him have those? What the fuck. Okay, so Chuck knew he worked for them but… he already had his gay panic it’s not okay for him to have another one while he _knows _his sexuality. 

Raleigh meets his eyes in the mirror and smirks. “I’ll be in the bath with you in a second, Chuck, be patient.” 

_ Fuck. _

Chuck scoffs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mate. Just get in the fucking tub.”

Raleigh grins.  _ Fuck that’s beautiful _ . 

Chuck shakes himself out of it and says “if you wait a second I’ll go in first and you can settle in between my legs.”

Finally, Raleigh seems shaken. By what, Chuck has no idea. “Wait, what? I thought— I thought we’d just be facing each other.”

Chuck rolls his eyes. “You just kissed me and now you can’t be in the same space as me?”

Through gritted teeth, Raleigh spits out, “you know what, asshole? Fine! Get in the damn tub and I’ll follow you!”

Grinning, Chuck says “thank you” and slides in, not giving a damn about the bit of water that sloshes out over the side. He spreads his legs, motioning to the space between. “You coming,  _ Rah _ ls?”

Chuck sees Raleigh choke on his breath as he realizes the intentional way Chuck let it roll off his tongue. Muttering, he hesitantly steps into the water, fitting himself between Chuck’s legs.

Raleigh leans forward, his shoulders hunched, his back clearly tensed and, well Chuck couldn’t have that, now could he?

Kissing his shoulder, Chuck whispers against cool skin. “Hey, sweetheart, you can loosen up a bit; you’re safe.”

Raleigh shakes his head. lowers it. “I know, Hansen, It’s just. It’s fucking  _ hard _ .”

Chuck haltingly puts his hands on Raleigh’s shoulders, gently pulling him towards his chest. “You can lean back, Rals, there’s still a layer of clothing between us because  _ one of us _ followed the rules.”

Raleigh laughs and Chuck can feel it vibrating through him. He’s sure Raleigh can feel his heart beating out of his chest, so he hastily covers it up by offering to wash Raleigh’s hair. 

Raleigh stills and his back turns a light pink.  _ Holy shit that’s so fucking cute what the fuck man. _

“Uh, yeah, if you want? I can do it for you too—” but Chuck cuts him off with a “no thank you,” the  _ if you put your hands on me I might come _ left unsaid. 

Chuck gently squeezes the shampoo bottle, and when he instructs Raleigh to dip his head in the water, just to dampen it, he swears Raleigh coughs before he goes under and Chuck lifts his head to the ceiling, praying to keep his cool and not fuck this up. When Raleigh comes back up, wiping the water out of his eyes, he  _ voluntarily _ leans back against Chuck’s chest and Chuck grins. 

Chuck uses the hand that doesn’t have shampoo in it to gently touch Raleigh’s hair before he rubs his hands together and begins to lightly card his fingers through the blond hair. he spreads the shampoo evenly throughout before he starts to scratch at Raleigh’s scalp and when Raleigh moans and Chuck can feel the shiver against his chest, he fucking  _ melts.  _ Raleigh immediately apologizes but Chuck cuts him off by stroking harder, just making sure Raleigh can feel him there. Making sure he can take this small act of— not love, it’s too early for that. kindness?  _ affection _ . Making sure Raleigh recognizes that no, Chuck does not regularly go around washing his coworkers’ hair. (Okay, so there was one time with Tendo but in his defense— who doesn’t want to touch Tendo’s hair.)

Chuck grabs the bar of soap, temporarily stopping the movement of his fingers through Raleigh’s hair and Raleigh lets out a soft whimper, something he probably didn’t even realize he’d done. Now Chuck knows damn well that Raleigh had just taken a shower, so if anything could be skipped it was the body wash. but Chuck is also hoping against hope that Raleigh would let him touch him. He knows that being confident and having some semblance of bravado doesn’t mean jack shit when you have scars that you don’t want anybody to see. 

Chuck leans close to Raleigh, resting his head in the crook of his neck. “Now I can wash your upper body, baby, or we could just skip it and rinse you off. Is the former okay?” 

Raleigh, god bless him, just nods his head, his eyes closing and his breathing beginning to slow. Chuck lathers the soap into his hands and begins to massage it onto Raleigh’s back, kneading the muscles because a. fuck, those  _ muscles _ and b. he just worked out, he’s going to be sore, and sure enough, there’s a soft whimper coming from Raleigh and Chuck leans forward to see Raleigh biting his lip and flushing from the effort, so he stops for a second to say, “you can let it out, rals, I don’t mind,” and Raleigh sighs and tilts his head. 

“It’s not just that, Chuck.” He fiddles with his fingers. Lowers his head. “I’m just really ticklish.”

Chuck can’t help it. He bursts out laughing. 

Raleigh covers his face with his hands. “ _ This  _ is why I didn’t say anything, you fucking brute, fuck you!”

Chuck giggles, wiping a tear from his eye. “Did— did you just call me a  _ brute _ ? Oh, mate, that’s the best thing that’s happened to me this whole day.”

Raleigh stands up in order to turn around to face him, realizes that his crotch is now eye-level with Chuck, and hastily sits down, sending an even bigger wave than before over the edge. Raleigh gets closer, practically crawling into his lap, pulling Chuck closer and making Chuck scrabble for a hold on the edge of the tub before Raleigh hooks his legs around Chuck’s waist. Kisses Chuck’s ear. “So are you telling me?” Kisses his neck. “That you’re not ticklish—” Kisses his shoulder. “Anywhere on your body?” 

Chuck laughs. “Yeah, my d—” before he’s cut off by a sudden kiss to his lips and Raleigh pulls away shaking with laughter. 

“You know I’d grab your dick just to spite you for that comment, but I’m going to save that for later. For right now—”

Chuck spaces out, still stuck on “save that for later,” but when he feels light fingers trace over the back of his neck, Chuck fucking  _ giggles,  _ an uncontrollable peal of laughter that shoots out of his mouth like an ill-timed comment from Dr. Geiszler and  _ fuck  _ why is he thinking about newt when he has  _ Raleigh fucking Becket  _ on his lap in the  _ bath _ . 

Raleigh grins, triumphantly hitting the water with his fist. “Gotcha!”

Chuck growls. “Listen here, you little shit.” He reaches out to scrabble at Raleigh’s abdomen, just trying to tickle him in return but  _ fuck _ those abs came back to haunt him and he just kind of— traces over them like a fucking imbecile and Raleigh is looking at him with that fond expression Raleigh looks at everyone with, but Chuck isn’t used to the full force of that gaze being put onto him. 

Raleigh grins, grabbing one of Chuck’s hands and placing it on his waist. “I’m ticklish pretty much everywhere, so you really can’t lose with me.”

Chuck smiles in return, soft and genuine. “Could anyone ever lose with you, Becket?”

Raleigh flushes and looks down at the water. “ _ God,  _ how can you say those things so easily but still be a complete dick half the time to everyone else?”

Fair question. Chuck just takes Raleigh’s hand and simply says, “because you’re not everyone else.”

Raleigh kisses him again, soft, not much pressure. Enough to make him want more, enough to make him crave waking up to Raleigh every day or at least getting to kiss him every day. 

Raleigh is so distracted by the kiss ( _ as he should be, Chuck Hansen is an excellent kisser)  _ that he doesn’t notice Chuck’s hand creeping up from his waist to his stomach until Chuck just fucking _ goes for it  _ and tickles Raleigh until he’s blue in the face and can’t stop laughing and, yeah, sure, Raleigh’s abs do feel  _ so goddamn nice  _ under his fingers, but what feels even nicer is the warmth of Raleigh’s pure, uncontained  _ joy  _ spreading through him. 

So when Tendo and Mako come into Chuck’s room because Herc is looking for him and open the bathroom door to see two grown ass men (one fully clothed and the other half-dressed) having a tickle fight and occasionally peppering the other with kisses in an admittedly small bathtub for how big they are— they just look at each other and walk out, maybe taking a picture. And maybe they frame that picture, relaying the story and putting it in Herc’s room so when Raleigh sits with Chuck and Herc at breakfast the next day, Herc can’t make eye contact with either of them. And when Chuck asks Raleigh if the meal “tickles his fancy,” Herc really can’t explain why he choked on his water.

**Author's Note:**

> if you read all of this: thank you. 
> 
> if you liked it/hated it/were ambivalent, feel free to let me know; i thrive on that shit. 
> 
> i’m on twitter @ docmccoys


End file.
